George Brown

Is Boris Johnson the most unsuitable foreign secretary Britain has ever had? No. That title belongs to George Brown, the dypso deputy leader of the Labour Party at the end of the ’60s. Private Eye coined the phrase “tired and emotional”, meaning blind drunk, after Brown publicly insulted the wife of the British ambassador to France, Sir Patrick Reilly, at a dinner party at the French embassy in London in 1968.

Brown once boasted that “many Members of Parliament drink and womanise – now, I’ve never womanised”. That was true, but he did once approach a striking figure at a reception in the Foreign Office to ask for a dance. The resplendent individual rejected the minister’s advances explaining to Brown that he was drunk, the music was not a waltz but the Peruvian national anthem, and that he was not a beautiful lady in red as Brown seemed to aver but the Cardinal Archbishop of Lima.

Beat that Boris.

• A Journey Through Manchester’s Political History. Guided tour, Fri 29 July, 12pm from the People’s History Museum.

Search

Manchester News

BOOK A TALK WITH MANCHESTER’S WITTIEST PUBLIC SPEAKER: ED GLINERT

If you don’t fancy a walk, book a talk. What a great idea for your social club, U3A group, Probus set, National Trust outfit, local history society; to book New Manchester Walks’ Ed Glinert to give an illustrated talk on one of a huge variety of subjects, especially on Peterloo what with the 200th anniversary in 2019, for which Glinert has already been booked by the Lit & Phil, Central Library, the Portico Library, Hale WI… He had 65 people at Central Library for the Town Hall Murals recently and about 150 at Knutsford Methodist Church for Marx & Engels in Manchester. Continue reading →